Petros Koutrakis is professor of environmental sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health, head of the exposure, epidemiology, and risk program, and director of the Center for Ambient Particle Health Effects. His research focuses on the development of human exposure measurement techniques and the investigation of sources, transport, and the fate of air pollutants. In collaboration with his colleagues in the environmental chemistry laboratory, he has developed ambient particle concentrators and high volume samplers that can be used to conduct human and animal inhalation studies. He has also developed a personal ozone monitor, a continuous fine particle measurement technique, and several other sampling methods for a variety of gaseous and particulate air pollutants. These novel techniques have been used extensively by air pollution scientists and human exposure assessors in United States and worldwide. Koutrakis has conducted a number of comprehensive air pollution studies in the United States, Canada, Spain, Chile, Kuwait, Cyprus, and Greece that investigate the extent of human exposures to gaseous and particulate air pollutants. Other research interests include the assessment of particulate matter exposures and their effects on cardiac and pulmonary health.
Koutrakis has published more than 170 peer-reviewed papers in the areas of air quality, exposure, and health effects assessment and instrumentation. He received a PhD in environmental chemistry from the University of Paris.